Observation of the Efimov state of the helium trimer

Kunitski, Maksim; Zeller, S.; Voigtsberger, J.; Kalinin, Anton; Schmidt, L. Ph. H.; Schöffler, M. S.; Czasch, A.; Schöllkopf, Wieland; Grisenti, R. E.; Jahnke, T.; Blume, D.; Dørner, R.

doi:10.1126/science.aaa5601

Cited by 221 publications

(228 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Motivated by the recent experimentally measured [10,11,31] distributions of helium trimers 4 He 3 and 4 He 2 3 He, we determined the structural properties of the ground state for all A 4 He 2 and A 4 He 3 He trimers. The structure is visualized by two-variable distribution functions, inter-particle separations P(He − He, 4 He − A) and angles P(θ 1 , θ 3 ) where θ 1 and θ 3 denote respectively α and γ angle of the triangle ABC formed by atoms.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[10,11] This opens up the possibility that manyvariable distributions could be also extracted. Since they give more information about the system, comparison of theoretical and experimental results would help to know if theoretical models need additional refinements.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, it was experimentally confirmed that the excited state of 4 He 3 is an Efimov state, while the ground state of 4 He 2 3 He was suggested to be a quantum halo state [10,11]. Recently, helium trimer properties have been thoroughly investigated not only theoretically [12][13][14], but also experimentally [12,13].…”

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confidence: 97%

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Structure of Halo and Quasi-halo Helium–Helium–Alkali Trimers

2017

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We report a diffusion Monte Carlo study of A 4 He 2 and A 4 He 3 He trimers' structural properties, were A is one of the alkali atoms 6,7 Li, 23 Na, 39 K, 85 Rb or 133 Cs. Some of them are in a pure halo state, characterized by large spatial extent and universality, while some are close to the halo limit. The theoretical analysis of these trimers enables insight on how structural properties of weakly bound systems change when approaching the halo edge. For that purpose, two-variable distributions of inter-particle separations and angles were calculated. Extreme spatial extensions of some trimers with 3 He confirm their halo nature. Although all the considered systems are floppy, trimers with all bound dimer subsystems are less spread and have significantly lower percentage of quasi-linear configurations than those which have at least one unbound dimer subsystem.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Structure of Halo and Quasi-halo Helium–Helium–Alkali Trimers

2017

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“…The interactions between neutral atoms in dilute atomic gases are of very short range compared to the two-body scattering length [9][10][11]. This implies that low-energy observables are universal and only depend on the scattering length which can be the same for disparate potentials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Mean-square radii of two-component three-body systems in two spatial dimensions

et al. 2016

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We calculate root-mean-square radii for a three-body system confined to two spatial dimensions and consisting of two identical bosons (A) and one distinguishable particle (B). We use zero-range two-body interactions between each of the pairs, and focus thereby directly on universal properties. We solve the Faddeev equations in momentum space and express the mean-square radii in terms of first-order derivatives of the Fourier transforms of densities. The strengths of the interactions are adjusted for each set of masses to produce equal two-body bound-state energies between different pairs. The mass ratio, A = mB/mA, between particles B and A are varied from 0.01 to 100 providing a number of bound states decreasing from 8 to 2. Energies and mean-square radii of these states are analyzed for small A by use of the Born-Oppenheimer potential between the two heavy A-particles. For large A the radii of the two bound states are consistent with a slightly asymmetric threebody structure. When A approaches thresholds for binding of the three-body excited states, the corresponding mean-square radii diverge inversely proportional to the deviation of the three-body energy from the two-body thresholds. The structures at these three-body thresholds correspond to bound AB-dimers and one loosely bound A-particle.

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“…Thus far, the experimental study of He-containing vdW molecules has focused on molecules formed in supersonic expansions [8,[11][12][13][14][15]. Recent groundbreaking advances in the production and trapping of translationally cold molecules [16] made it possible to create trapped ensembles of cold polar molecules with high enough densities to study collisions and chemical reactions [16][17][18] and carry out ultra-precise spectroscopic measurements to probe the physics beyond the Standard Model [19].…”

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confidence: 99%

Cold Anisotropically Interacting van der Waals Molecule: TiHe

et al. 2017

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We have used laser ablation and helium buffer-gas cooling to produce the titanium-helium van der Waals molecule at cryogenic temperatures. The molecules were detected through laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Ground-state Ti(a 3 F2)-He binding energies were determined for the ground and first rotationally excited states from studying equilibrium thermodynamic properties, and found to agree well with theoretical calculations based on newly calculated ab initio Ti-He interaction potentials, opening up novel possibilities for studying the formation, dynamics, and non-universal chemistry of van der Waals clusters at low temperatures.PACS numbers: 34.50. Lf, 33.15.Fm, Weakly bound complexes of atoms and molecules held together by long-range van der Waals (vdW) forces are key to understanding a wide range of phenomena in physics and chemistry, ranging from classical and quantum chaos [1] and phase transitions [2] to the universal physics of Efimov trimers and quantum droplets [3][4][5]. In condensed-phase chemical physics, vdW clusters serve as a model to study the mechanisms of solvation, nucleation, and chemical reactivity [6][7][8]. In the context of quantum many-body physics, vdW molecules can be used to explore the formation of exotic quasiparticles in superfluid helium nanodroplets [9]. Helium-containing vdW molecules are the lightest of all vdW clusters, and hence are of particular interest as model systems, in which to study the emergence of macroscopic quantum phenomena such as superfluidity [10].Thus far, the experimental study of He-containing vdW molecules has focused on molecules formed in supersonic expansions [8,[11][12][13][14][15]. Recent groundbreaking advances in the production and trapping of translationally cold molecules [16] made it possible to create trapped ensembles of cold polar molecules with high enough densities to study collisions and chemical reactions [16][17][18] and carry out ultra-precise spectroscopic measurements to probe the physics beyond the Standard Model [19]. The production and trapping of cold vdW molecules would similarly enable highly sensitive spectroscopic detection of heretofore unobserved clusters, as well as the study and control of their quantum dynamics [7,[20][21][22].We have recently observed the formation of cold, ground-state LiHe molecules in a cryogenic He buffer gas [23]. The LiHe molecule has a single near-threshold bound state with a binding energy of 0.024 cm −1 [24] comparable to that of the He 2 dimer [11,21]. Due to their vanishingly small binding energies, these molecules belong to an exotic class of quantum halo dimers characterized by extremely delocalized wavefunctions, universal properties, and enormously large three-body formation rates [3,25]. As the binding energies of most other * weinstein@physics.unr.edu; http://www.physics.unr.edu/xap/ atoms and molecules with He are much larger than those of LiHe and He 2 [7], it is far from obvious whether atomHe vdW clusters would form upon immersing the parent atoms into cryogenic He buffer gas. ...

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Observation of the Efimov state of the helium trimer

Cited by 221 publications

References 32 publications

Structure of Halo and Quasi-halo Helium–Helium–Alkali Trimers

Structure of Halo and Quasi-halo Helium–Helium–Alkali Trimers

Mean-square radii of two-component three-body systems in two spatial dimensions

Cold Anisotropically Interacting van der Waals Molecule: TiHe

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